Her Eyes
by Kelsey
Summary: Casey’s never seemed so young and innocent as when she’s listening to Olivia’s sob story in a bar, her eyes full of pity and perhaps a touch of empathy. Her hair looks soft in the muted light, and Olivia thinks idly that she likes it better like this, str


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Her Eyes

By

Kelsey

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Disclaimer: Totally not mine. Though you'd think with all the Law and Order's on the TV, they could share some, wouldn't you?

Author's Note: Oh no. Groan. All I need is another fandom. But when I was watching the end of tonight's episode, I just couldn't get this fic out of my head. So, here it is.

Summary: "Casey's never seemed so young and innocent as when she's listening to Olivia's sob story in a bar, her eyes full of pity and perhaps a touch of empathy. Her hair looks soft in the muted light, and Olivia thinks idly that she likes it better like this, straight with an outward curl at the ends."

Rating: PG

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Casey's never seemed so young and innocent as when she's listening to Olivia's sob story in a bar, her eyes full of pity and perhaps a touch of empathy. Her hair looks soft in the muted light, and Olivia thinks idly that she likes it better like this, straight with an outward curl at the ends.

Olivia's good at hiding what she feels. _The SVU cop, that females one, she must be a dyke_. She hears all the time. Stabler's good at keeping the rumors away from her, and she knows he's stood toe-to-toe with some of the harsher critics to keep them from calling her these things to her face. Finn, his dark side even nearer to the surface than Stabler's, never says anything, but sometimes she sees a dark look cross the precinct and some cop with his mouth open and his shoulders square abruptly sink into himself and pull up his jaw.

Despite all of this, she knows she's good at hiding her feelings. She knows this because cops are not easily intimidated, even by the likes of Stabler and Finn, so they can't possibly have anything more than a vague notion that all female cops, or at least all female sex cops are dykes. If they'd intercepted one of those oh-so-rare looks she sends at Casey when she just absolutely can't help herself anymore, they'd be standing toe-to-toe with _her_, telling _her_ what they thought, not Stabler.

Taking in her surroundings wasn't big on her mind as she related her story to Casey, so it doesn't occur to Olivia until later that there was something in Casey's eyes as she listened. Something behind the pity and the empathy and the tiny shred of understanding born of knowing someone who was a drunk, but never having to deal with them like Olivia had. A relative, maybe, one that wasn't her immediate family. But she saw something past the flickering emotions, something deeper. And she can't tell what it was.

She sits on the court room, listening to the girl, Carrie, plead out on killing her mother. And Olivia doesn't feel the least guilty about this one. She's made other decisions that she's wondered aboutencouraged Casey to make pleas because they couldn't convict, and she's felt bad about some of those. Some of those were people who shouldn't be on the street. But Carrie? She's who Olivia would have been fifteen years ago if she'd picked up a lamp instead of kicking. And Olivia hates knowing that she has that violence in her, and she thinks that Carrie probably does too, and that and five years in prison should be punishment enough.

And the judge has sentenced her, and Carrie and Justin hug and kiss and cry, and then she walks away with the court officer. Calm enoughher life will be forever disrupted by this conviction, and even more than that, by these events themselves, but it's not over. And Simone is talking to Casey, and asking her something, and then they both look over at Olivia, and she wants to shrink into the bench, seeing that pity there within their eyes again.

But that _something _that is gnawing at her still is shining in Casey's eyes, beyond the pity, and Olivia holds her gaze, trying to figure out what it is. It's not disgust, like some people who can't stand violence at all would feel. Not that Casey could handle this job if she was one of them. It's not the guardedness Olivia sees in some people's eyes when they learn what she does for a living, but then it wouldn't be, would it? She's know Casey for months.

Just before she looks away, Olivia gets it. Underneath that pity and concern and quiet affection is admiration.

Olivia doesn't think she's worth admiring, but it makes her feel a little warm inside as she rises from the bench and leaves the courtroom, pausing to wait for Casey.

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